Pretty classic ME ending. Clearly listened to the feedback from ME3. Nomad race *plus* help from your allies? The best.

My quick thoughts on the game:- Combat is fucking awesome. Getting flanked by enemies, repeatedly? Yes please.- Characters are mostly good. I liked Liam's mission turning the loyalty trope on it's head a bit - instead of Liam having to trust you, you having to trust Liam. The way the characters move around the ship and interact is great. - Crafting sucks. I get the idea, but it wasn't until late game that I had enough resources to actually craft shit I wanted to any degree. Either I didn't have enough research credits to unlock all the level appropriate armor I wanted, or I couldn't scrape enough of a rare mineral.- For being open world, most of the side quests suck pretty hard. Of course, we were obviously spoiled by the Witcher 3, but really Bioware? You can do better.- Even with four dialogue options instead of 2, Ryder seems.... pretty much the same. - Hug interrupts are the best- Profiles/favorites aren't implemented well enough to be useful.- Multiplayer is hella fun.

I've started a second playthrough, as a Vanguard Sarah, and had more bugs so far in the first few hours than probably the entirety of my previous playthrough, which seems weird. Also amped the difficulty, which has made combat SO MUCH harder at the beginning.

Cons: Insanely over-complicated UI. Inane crafting. Confusing store shopping interface. Dialogue choices are "Agree", "Agree professionally", "Agree with a joke". Dialogue choices (or lack thereof) don't affect teammate's performance or relations with you. Only 1 quest on 1 world needed. Worst plot secret possible. Ryder can't take ANYTHING seriously. Is underwhelmed by everything. An enemy I couldn't care less about, let alone hate. Avatar VS Collector conflict doesn't afftect me much at all. Profile system is problematic, limits choices and kills what little replayability there was. Missions amount to little more than driving to points on map to clear entries out of journal. I rarely knew WTF I was actually doing, even more rarely cared. Almost got interesting suggesting TIM is there but too little too late. Cannot play white people because dev hopes we all die. Scanning kills momentum. Nothing to discover on any explorable non-core planets. Nothing needed to do on any other planet but establish 1 outpost, on Eos. Everything else can be skipped and proceed to the ending and still get same ending. Etc...

Pros: Mako is much more driveable

I hope they kill this franchise with fire while it can still be remembered as the greatest series in the history of gaming, and not Dragon Age: Inquisition in Space. And DA:I sucked assholes on it's own.

But jesus, it just won't end. I'm about sick of "go to Eos, now go to Kadara. Now back to Nexus. And then Eos. Oh, now Peebee wants you to go to Kadara. Back to the ship to read an email... that tells you to go back to Kadara."

There's a core of a really, really great game here. But they've buried it under fifty pounds of bullshit and side quests.

Mass Effect original trilogy are my favorite games of all time, bar none. I've played them all so many times.

This one is just breaking my heart. I want to love it. I keep coming back to it. It just doesn't seem to want to let me love it.

FWIW, if you've made that one outpost at Eos, you can go directly to endgame. Odd. But true.

Having just played ME3 again, the biggest difference is in pacing. Andromeda has like NONE. The anxiety levels being less open in 2 and 3 are absolutely insane. 3 still makes me want a Zanax. Andromeda makes me want to take a nap.